S T A T E M E N T
michigandaily.com — The Michigan Daily
Wednesday, March 15, 2023— 9
The Argonaut, The University
of Idaho, Moscow, Idaho
The
Argonaut
is
The
University of Idaho’s student-
run newspaper. It is home to
approximately 25 staffers and
led by Editor in Chief Haadiya
Tariq. Its offices are located
on the third floor of the Bruce
M.
Pitman
Center,
and
on
late production nights, tables
are
usually
cluttered
with
dummy layout pages, junk food
wrappers and cans of emptied
energy drinks. The newsroom is
warm and bright and sometimes
staffers project the Super Bowl
or Christmas movies on any
empty wall they can find during
the holidays.
On Sunday, Nov. 13, 2022,
University of Idaho students
Kaylee
Goncalves,
Xana
Kernodle,
Ethan
Chapin
and
Madison
Mogen
were
violently murdered in their off-
campus residence, spurring a
weeks-long investigation that
captivated the country. Within
one day of the homicides, rumors
about how a man dressed in
black had killed four students
began swirling on Yik Yak, an
anonymous messaging app. That
was the nature of a school like
The University of Idaho; it was
the way things were. Moscow
was the special sort of place
where everyone seemed to know
everyone else, and everything
in one way or another was
intrinsically connected.
The Argonaut was one of
the first news sources at the
house
where
the
homicides
had occurred. Tariq lived just
down the road from it, and one
of her staffers knew the victims
personally.
Soon,
the
house
on 1122 King Road became
something no one could ever
seem to get away from. It was
profoundly
unforgettable,
nestled one minute away from
Greek Row and on particularly
clear
days,
visible
through
the pine trees from campus.
The
first
press
conference,
held at the Moscow Police
Department’s
offices,
was
bursting at the seams, the room
far too small and ill-prepared
to accommodate the journalists
that had flown in to report
on the homicides. It had been
seven years since Moscow last
recorded a homicide; the town
had always been a quiet one
and
generations
of
families
had loved the land and called it
home.
Tariq
didn’t
attend
her
classes for the entire week. “My
academics
were
completely
on pause, the rest of my life on
pause,” she said. “I just spent
that whole week reporting … it’s
more intimate too when you’re a
student and you know the people
who know (the victims) them.
You can’t escape it, it becomes
the whole thing you’re doing.”
Nearly half of the student
body did not return to campus
after
Thanksgiving
break.
Things
were
different
after
the
homicides;
emptier
and
hollower. One afternoon, when
Tariq tried to conduct street
interviews,
students
were
uncharacteristically hostile.
“You know even though I’m
here as a student and a journalist,
they just see the journalist part”
Tariq said. “And that was really
difficult to deal with.”
From the day the homicides
occurred through the end of
the term, Tariq spent most of
her time reporting. It wore her
down, in the way that attempting
to understand and carry the
entire grief of a community
does, and it was something that
even seasoned journalists with
careers spanning decades could
never truly understand.
“One thing I remember; when
we had the indoor memorial
for the victims, I decided not
to go, we had other reporters
covering it, but I just could not
be there.” she said. “I never
in a million years would have
thought that I would cover
something this big. I thought
the pandemic would have been
the huge defining moment of my
college journalism experience.
You
really
only
experience
something like this once in your
career as a journalist, and it’s
usually not when you’re only
21.”
Last December, the Moscow
Police
Department
finally
apprehended
and
charged
a suspect with the murders
of
Kaylee
Goncalves,
Xana
Kernodle, Ethan Chapin and
Madison Mogen. Coverage of
the homicides, theories of why
someone could have possibly
committed such a crime, who
the victims were — and the way
they lived and loved — soon bled
into coverage of the ensuing
trial. But for now, Moscow
is still in mourning, and The
Argonaut is still here.
“We will continue covering
the trial, it’s something we care
about a lot,” Tariq said. “We
can fill the gaps that national
media can’t address. They’re
gone, they’re not here anymore,
they’re not on the ground in
Moscow
anymore.
They’ll
be back for the trial, but not
for what’s going to happen in
between. We’re going to be here.
They’re not.”
The
Hilltop,
Howard
University, Washington, D.C.
The
Hilltop
is
Howard
University’s
student-run
newspaper.
Co-founded
by
Zora Neale Hurston and Louis
Eugene King in 1924, it employs
57 staffers, led by Editor in
Chief Jasper Smith. The Hilltop
is one of a kind and it stands
today as the first and only daily
newspaper at a Historically
Black College or University in
the country. And after months
of
halted
production
and
delays due to the pandemic,
The Hilltop has just begun to
live again. Staff have started to
trickle back into the newsroom
for more than just meetings,
late-night
editing
and
last
minute production. And more
than anything else, it’s clear
that The Hilltop has always
been the sort of newsroom that
will forever change your life,
if you let it. There is so much
joy in leading The Hilltop.
Homecoming, one of Howard’s
most beautiful and celebrated
traditions, has always been an
honor for journalists to cover
— and Smith has a soft spot for
The Hilltop’s special front page
layouts each year.
On
Aug.
26th,
2022
for
the second time in 48 hours,
Howard University received
its eighth bomb threat of the
year.
Students
evacuated
from Howard Plaza East and
West Towers, two on-campus
residence dorms, in the early
hours of morning. JD, one of
The Hilltop’s reporters and
at the time, was in the towers
and called Smith immediately.
At 3 a.m., their first instinct
was to discuss the reporting
process. After all, this wasn’t
the first time either one of
them had had to cover a bomb
threat, and it seemed like they
had almost implicitly solidified
the most efficient routine to
secure as many interviews and
photographs as possible.
“It wasn’t until after we
had finished reporting that
I stopped to ask myself and
JD … wait are you okay? Am I
okay?” Smith said. “We’re just
students too.” The repeated
bomb threats had come to
define the way they reported
on these kinds of things, and
the weight of what they had
been truly asked to carry.
To report for The Hilltop,
to become the voice of one of
the
illustrious
institutions
in the country, and various
communities in Washington,
D.C.
is
to
also
sometimes
reckon with days of repeated
traumatic events. In the span of
the same week, on the last day of
Black History Month, Howard
University received yet another
bomb threat, and a student
committed suicide. Reporting,
for Smith, became a means of
coping, of understanding and
reconciliation. And perhaps the
only means that her job could
ever give her. Yet, there never
seemed to be enough room to
carry every ounce of grief.
“Your
universities
are
kind of like your playground,
and in turn you get almost
desensitized, it only hits you
all at once after the reporting
is done,” Smith said.
“Journalism
is
a
very
thankless job, people don’t pay
attention to the byline. You’re
not doing it for you,” Smith
said. “It just affirms the love
I have for what I do and that
what I’m doing is so much
bigger than me. You can’t ever
quit because there’s so much
that depends on us working
together.”
***
There is love in college
journalism, love in late nights
spent in the newsroom, in the
special sort of rush that comes
with a byline, in creating
something that is meant to
outlive so many of us long
after we have gone. But there
is also grief too, and in time,
it has become an unavoidable
condition of what it means to
be a journalist. Reporting on
tragedy and trauma, the pain
and anger, the love and loss
that define the communities we
serve, sometimes becomes the
only feasible means of grieving,
and
mostly,
the
inevitable
weight we carry.
Students evacuate to Banneker South parking lot following a bomb threat to Howard Plaza Towers.
JD Jean-Jacques/The Hilltop.
The ribbon cutting ceremony at the 7th annual Lavender Reception, celebrating the Howard LGBTQ+ community.
Alexia Godinez-Thompson/The Hilltop.
A memorial sign reads, “Forever a Vandal, Xana Kernolde.”
Daniel V. Ramirez/The Argonaut
A Moscow police officer stands in the doorway of the residence where the homicides occurred.
Daniel V. Ramirez/The Argonaut
The Argonaut, Dec. 22, 2022 paper.